Laws Get Tougher - But Births Don't Drop

From welfare to work

New Statutory Rape Rules And A Crackdown On Repeat Pregnancies Haven't Had Much Effect.

October 5, 1997|By Jeff Kunerth of The Sentinel Staff

A year ago, lawmakers talked tough about cracking down on men who get adolescent girls pregnant and welfare mothers who continue to have babies.

It hasn't happened.

New statutory rape laws are virtually unenforced, and federal rules discouraging young mothers from having more children are ineffective. Since the beginning of June, 1,281 babies have been born in Florida to welfare mothers who are under government restrictions to prevent additional births.

Those federal restrictions and state statutory rape laws, aimed at reducing the number of children born into public assistance, coincide with Florida's sweeping welfare reforms that went into effect last October.

Nationwide, men older than 20 are responsible for about half of the births to girls younger than 17. About 80 percent of those unwed teen mothers will become welfare recipients.

But in the same year when nearly 200 babies were born to girls younger than 16 in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties, only six men in metro Orlando were charged under the new statutory rape laws. All were in Orange County.

The laws make it a crime for a man older than 21 to get an unwed girl younger than 16 pregnant - whether she consented to having sex or not. It also is a felony for a man older than 24 to have sex with a girl younger than 18.

But law enforcement officials say they have not charged men with statutory rape because of a lack of cooperation from the girls. Whether for love or fear, girls are reluctant to prosecute the fathers.

''Even though we've received numerous cases, the problem is a lack of cooperation from the victims themselves,'' said Sgt. Lynn Stickley with the Orange County Sheriff's Department. ''In most cases, they refuse to give any information whatsoever about the father.''

Without the girl's cooperation, there is no case, said Robin Wilkinson, sex crimes division chief with the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office.

''We do our best to persuade these girls to cooperate, but you can't force a word out of their mouths,'' Wilkinson said. ''We require a sworn statement from the victim to prove the case.''

A familiar world

Juanita Sexton is a typical example. She turned 17 in May, a month after the birth of her daughter. The baby's father is 29. After the man denied paternity, she wanted to go after him for child support and revenge.

''He won't say it's his because he has three other girlfriends,'' Juanita said. ''He has three sons with one mother and two daughters with another. This is his sixth child. He doesn't support any of his kids.''

With the birth of her child, Juanita enters the world of welfare occupied by her mother, Linda, who has been on welfare for eight years. Now 40, Linda Sexton was 21 and unmarried when she had the first of six children.

A troubled child who kept getting expelled for fighting, Juanita dropped out of school in the seventh grade.

''I'm not real smart,'' she said. ''I can barely read. My brother is in third grade and can read better than I can.''

Juanita was 13 when she started seeing the father of her child. Linda Sexton could see a baby coming like a storm on the horizon. When she tried to stop it, her daughter ran away.

''I wasn't surprised when it happened. She'd been running away for so long, I thought it would happen before it did,'' Sexton said. ''I don't blame the girls as much as the men. A man in his 20s ought to know better.''

A mother's love is no match for a man who knows how to make a young girl feel good.

''He was nice and treated me with respect,'' Juanita said. ''He didn't look at other girls when I was around.''

Failing in her attempts to prevent the pregnancy, Sexton tried to teach Juanita to be a mother. Get out of the house and find a job, she told her daughter: ''She has to know how to do things for herself. She's a mama now.''

Case closed

Juanita talked about going to college someday and swore she wouldn't have sex again until she was married. She wanted to find a job, get an apartment and be on her own.

''I want to become self-sufficient so I can get my tongue pierced,'' Juanita said.

But in late August, as Sexton was pressing her daughter to file statutory rape charges against the father, Juanita ran away from home and moved in with the man.

Case closed before it opened.

Three weeks later, hungry and mad at her boyfriend, Juanita moved back in with her mother.

Even without the girl's cooperation, the system exists to identify the older fathers of babies born to teens and report them to law enforcement. Women receiving welfare are required by the state to identify the fathers of their children or risk losing their assistance.

Paternity is then established through DNA tests ordered under the Department of Revenue's child support enforcement program.